Monthly Archives: August 2018

This one has been staring me in the face for a long time, but I didn’t see it. Regulate is a very common word meaning to control or impose order on something by setting limits. In other words, to lay down rules and impose punishments or disincentives for breaking them.

What eventually caught my eye about this word is its obvious connection to various Indo-European words related to the concept of kingship. The root of regulate is reg-, which literally means “a straight line” or “to direct in a straight line;” in other words to rule. There are numerous cognates of reg- that mean “king” in Indo-European tongues:

Rey (Spanish)

Raja (Sanskrit)

Rex (Latin)

Rí (Irish)

Re (Italian)

This list is notable in that it is limited to the Celtic, Romance and Indian branches of the tree. Being a native English speaker, I wondered why we say king and what that says about the differing concepts of kingship within the Indo-European language family.

King, and its relatives in the Germanic language family (König in German, koning in Dutch, kung in Swedish, konungur in Icelandic, etc.) stem from a different Indo-European root altogether, gen-, which means “to give birth.” This meaning is clear in modern English words such as generate and engender, but there are cognates in numerous Indo-European languages which denote more than the simple fact of being born, but also membership in a tribal or ethnic group:

Gente (Spanish)

Jánas (Sanskrit)

Genus (Latin)

Cine (Irish)

Genus (Italian)

Génos (Greek)

The Indo-European root gen- came into English as kin, meaning “family.” King is the result of a compound Old English word, cyning, which combines the noun cyn (equivalent to modern English kin), and the suffix -ing. In this usage, the suffix denotes belonging to or being descended from the noun it follows, a pattern often seen in family and tribal names in the ancient Germanic world (think of the Scyldings from Beowulf). So cyning literally means something like “member/descendent of the family/tribe.”

Based on the above, it is clear that the Celtic, Romance and Indian words for king are all formed from a root (reg-) that emphasizes the legalistic exercise of executive power, while the root used by the Germanic languages (gen-) emphasizes membership in a group that defines itself through shared descent.

This difference seems to have its origin in the differing political systems found in the cultures themselves. Ancient Romans, for instance, viewed themselves as being citizens of a state that imposed laws and exacted punishment for breaking them, whereas Germanic tribesmen viewed themselves as being just that; members of a tribe. Even though the political situation on the ground has changed over time, the ancient distinction between the etymologies of the words remain, much like the silent “gh” in the word “night”.

About the Author

S.R. Hardy is the author of Don’t Care None, as well as various short stories, poems and translations. His work has appeared in venues such as Mythic Circle, Eunoia Review, Eternal Haunted Summer, Beorh Quarterly and anthologies such as The Shining Cities and Beyond the Pillars. He is currently at work on a variety of books, stories, poems, and translations.